Week 36

First candles, towering cumulonimbi, competition winners

Hello! I hope you have had a lovely week. Mine has been much calmer and quieter than life has been of late and I am loving it, such tranquillity. I think this moment in the year is filled with such upheaval for so many of us, the exam results and new terms. On top of all that a wonderful friend who lived near me has just moved away, so combined with my son going away there has been a lot of leaving, a lot of upheaval, a lot of goodbyes and tears. And of course amazing and good stuff too with the launch of The Almanac 2026 and your AMAZING reaction to it. Thank you thank you. The results of the competition are posted at the end of this post…

So and I am a little sad, a little elated, a little wrung out, but overall it just feels better sometimes to be on the other side of that stuff, and to start nice autumnal life. Summer is gorgeous but exhausting. Hand me my cord jacket and woolly tights STAT.

This is our weekly community post in which we chart the seasons in their minutiae, asking ourselves: what has been particularly ‘this week in the year’ about this week? I tell you mine and then your tell me yours and at the end of the month I weave them all into one big, beautiful poem.

Here’s mine:

First candles

Night is starting to assert itself once again. Those of you who have been here some time will be thinking ‘oh here she goes on her candle soapbox again’. Well yes, it comes around regular as night and day, summer and winter.

This was a very un-fancy dinner me and my daughter had after the cinema - tomato and chicken risotto out of the freezer plus some frozen peas - but I lit candles and I took a pic to share with you to underline my strong belief that you must not save candles for best. Candles give such life to the gloom, and they are pretty cheap, and readily available. You most probably have some in your house already, waiting for…what? Hallowe’en? CHRISTMAS??

No. Light them tonight.

---

We have one more bit of business to attend to and that is….the winners of the Almanac 2026 launch competition! To win a signed/personalised copy of my new almanac. So many of you commented, saying such gorgeous, gorgeous things: it is easy to forget how this little book has worked its way into people’s lives, hearts and rituals. It is my great privilege that it has done so - truly an author’s dream - and it was so wonderful to be reminded by you, my lovely community, on the day it was launched into the world.

Clearly I wanted to send you all books but…I have randomly drawn three names and the winners are: Anouk Schepens, Louise Wood and Sam Pereira. Congratulations! I have contacted you all so check your private messages and get back to me.

Sorry if you didn’t win. You can buy copies in the link above. I hope you do! And once you have had a glance, please do consider leaving it a review on big, bad Amazon. We don’t have to buy it there to review it there and reviews there make a huge amount of difference, annoyingly, as everyone checks them, even bookshops considering stocking it.

That’s it from me, apart from this picture I took of this crazy rolling weather we’ve had this week, sun hot enough to dry a bedsheet in half an hour, and then ten minutes later enough rain to soak it through again. Dramatic towering cumulonimbuses marching across a deep blue sky. A few minutes after this picture was taken it was absolutely chucking it down.

That’s it from me! Now over to you. What have you seen/heard/spotted/sniffed/eaten this week that felt particularly ‘this week of the year’?